Job interviews typically include one or more meetings between a candidate and interviewers for a position at an entity such as a company or an organization. The interviewers are commonly selected to interview candidates and to determine whether the candidate's experience and skills in specific areas, work history, availability, and the personal attributes match those being sought out by the entity.
Coordinating and scheduling the employees or interviewers to conduct interviews in a way that schedules the most appropriate person for the type of interview to be conducted can be challenging. In order to ease the scheduling burden companies may employ a dedicated human resource professional or a recruiting coordinator. This recruiting coordinator can choose interviewers based on their skill set and the type of interview to be conducted. The dedicated recruiting coordinator schedules interviews that work best for the candidate and fulfill interviewing criteria.
Different types of interviews may be conducted to find out whether the candidate is a good fit within the company. Phone interviews or phone screens are a common first step in the interview process and can be conducted over the phone between one candidate and one interviewer. Multiple interviewers may conduct interviews, for example one interviewer at a time on a rotating basis. On-site interviews can include the candidate being interviewed at the company location. The on-site interview can include different sessions with different interviewers, each session having one or more interviewers. Each interview generally takes place in one or more rooms, which are typically reserved in advance to avoid double booking.
Each interview session can be used for a particular purpose or theme to determine the candidate's competency in a specific area. For example, technical or competency interviews may be conducted to determine the candidate's knowledge of a specific technical area and may be conducted by interviewers skilled in that area of competency. Behavioral interviews may be conducted to understand how the candidate has acted in specific employment-related situations. Case interviews allow the interviewer to assess the candidate's analytical ability and problem solving skills and include the candidate presenting a solution to a problem posed by the interviewer. Group interviews include multiple interviewers conducting the interview to understand how the candidate interacts in a group dynamic. Lunch interviews may also be conducted where one or more interviewers in an informal setting evaluate the candidate.
Even with a dedicated coordinator, scheduling complex interviews can be challenging. For example, the coordinator may not be familiar with multiple employees and their job descriptions to select the most qualified interviewer for the particular interview. After selecting the most fitting group of employees for the interviews, the coordinator may also have to search through calendars to find the available time slots for each person. The coordinator would have to confirm with each person and make sure to send calendar invitations to each one. If the interviewers make changes to the schedule, especially last minute, the coordinator would need to repeat part of the same process. The process is manual and may necessitate multiple steps of trial and error before the most fitting schedule is produced.